The Beginning....

Hello Blog World! For a long time now I have wanted to start a blog, seeing how it is like an online scrapbook. However, I kept telling myself, wait until you are starting a family and really have things to blog about. So I waited and waited. And then the time came, I got pregnant, hence the beginning of our family. And then I got sick....sicker than I ever thought I would, too sick to start a blog from the beginning. At 23 weeks I am starting to feel a little bit better and ready to tackle the blogging world. But let's start at the beginning, for the case of memory keeping.

Noah and I have discussed children and both of our desires to have a family since the beginning of our relationship. However, we also discussed how we both wanted to wait awhile after getting married to start a family and focus on strengthening our relationship and preparing for the life change that having a baby is.

Being the impatient woman that I tend to be, I tried constantly for a good two years to get him to let us try earlier than planned. Being the highly rational and well thought out man that he tends to be, he argued the need for me to finish my master's before we have a baby.

So, I did. A two and half year master's degree in early childhood special education in a mere 18 months. And being a teacher, which means I plan EVERYTHING, I knew we wanted to have a baby in the spring so that I would not have to go back to school after having the baby.

So here we are....anxiously awaiting the arrival of our little girl around April 22, 2013. 

We found out we were pregnant on my second day back to school with kiddos. However, we decided to wait a week to tell family because Noah's parents would be in town by then and we could tell everyone in person, all at once.

We told everyone two Friday nights later by giving cute little onesies that had fun sayings picked out just for them. Noah's parents were shocked, my mother on the other hand some how knew and came prepared with a cute little boy and girl gifts :)

Here are the cute little onesies that Grandma and Grandpa Wells and Aunt Whitney unwrapped.

At this point I was a few days shy of six weeks and feeling great! In fact, I ran 10 miles with Noah's sister that weekend as she was training for the Chicago Marathon.

Then Monday came and the sickness hit. I felt awful. I mean awful! I held it together until Thursday and then the puking began, and it didn't stop. That weekend was Labor Day Weekend, which Noah now refers to as the longest and darkest weekend of his life. I spent the entire weekend with my head on the couch or in the toilet. By Tuesday I was still feeling awful and took a sick day. I had lost 5lbs over the weekend and still couldn't keep solids and (even liquids at time) down so I called the doctor's office to make an appointment. Unfortunately my wonderful doctor didn't have any openings that day. Fortunately, my doctor's husband is a doctor in the same office and he did have an opening.

I made my way into the office and explained what was going on. I love what he said "Babies as wonderful as they are, are like parasites at first, they latch onto you and suck everything out of you." So True! He prescribed zofran, an anti-nausea medicine, which at week 23 I am still taking. It does a good job of taking the edge off the sickness, I still throw up but not nearly as often. Now, in addition to taking zofran I am also taking a prescription heart burn medicine similar to nexium and I eat tums like candy. This kid better have a lot of hair to make heartburn worth it!

Here is my "ammo" that I keep with me at all times. My fav...Tums "freshers" they taste like a mint and work like a tums. Its hard to follow the directions and not take more than 15 in a day. I have to keep track of how many I take each day to make sure I don't take too many.



Here are some pictures of the bump....Noah still doesn't think I look pregnant. But to his credit, at 18 weeks I was only up 2lbs from the start of the pregnancy.

Official Facebook Announcement Picture. At this point I was down 3 lbs from where I started the pregnancy and even though the Zofran was working I still was getting sick almost daily and was completely exhausted at all times.

4 weeks later I was back up to closer to pre-pregnancy weight but still feeling yucky a majority of the time. Not sure I am cut out for this pregnancy thing. I try constantly to get Noah to tell me that I NEVER have to do this again.

At 18 weeks I was officially 2 lbs heavier than my pre-pregnancy weight and wearing maternity pants. Most of my regular shirts still fit, but I need pants with a little more give in the middle. I always thought that my middle would expand out to a cute bump like you see on other pregnant women. No such luck, this baby is growing me a large muffin top and a few extra back rolls. Awesome, huh?